May, 2021, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: California Dumbs Down Its Kids, Biden Has a Kid Crisis at The Border and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) We have discussed the idiocy and ineptness of the California political class many times, especially lately. They have wrought the following problems on the citizens of the state:

• The state has the highest poverty level in the country.
• The state has, by far, the largest unfunded financially government liabilities.
• The state has one of the highest tax burdens in the country.
• The state has some of the highest gas prices in the country.
• The state has some of the highest utility costs in the country.
• The state has the largest homeless population in the country.
• The state’s cities have seen an ever increasing crime rate.
• The state has the highest housing prices in the country.
• The state lost 180,000 residents in the past year as citizens and businesses flee the deteriorating living conditions and quality of life situations in the state.
• The decreasing size of the state population has resulted in a lost Congressional seat.

And to this list of failures the state politicians and government bureaucrats have currently created the following insanity:

• Reason magazine recently discussed the new California state policy that “will discourage students who are gifted at math.”
• Yes, rather than and lift up the math expertise and ability of all students, the state has decided it is better to dumb down the entire math education process to the lowest common denominator.
• Of course, that is not how they explain it, preferring to cast the downgrade as being anti-racist: “Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking. [i.e. no advance classes]....The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.”
• More tripe from the new guidelines: “To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong."
• Reason correctly concludes: "If California adopts this framework, which is currently under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students. The government should let kids opt out of math if it's not for them. Don't let the false idea that there's no such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely."

Rather than lift everyone up, the state and the politicians that operate it want to bring everyone down to the dumbest level. Nice use and abuse of the learning process and taxpayer dollars.

2) Since Biden became President, we have had the following situations develop:

• Russian troops are threatening the Ukraine.
• Iran is threatening the world.
• The Palestinians and Israelis are killing each other.
• France and England are at odds over fishing rights.
• Someone, some hacker(s) shut down a major oil pipeline in the country.
• Inflation is at the highest level in over a decade.
• The unemployment rate recently started inching up again.

And none of these Biden failures are related to the biggest Biden screw up of all, the flooding of the southern border with illegal immigrants and he drug cartels sex, traffickers, and criminal gangs that come with it. And the most disturbing and disgusting aspect of the crisis on the border is the misuse and abuse of children:

• Almost 25,000 illegal immigrant children are in custody of the Biden government and separated from their parents.
• This is an all time high level.
• Senator Mitt Romney pinned the blame where it belongs, on Biden’s stupid border policy and statements:“The Biden administration’s lack of understanding of the power of incentives continues to baffle me: allowing unaccompanied minors to stay in the U.S. will yield a flood of unaccompanied minors. It’s de facto ‘child separation policy.’”
• Although Biden continues to blame Trump for the problem he has created, the reality is that the surge of unaccompanied kids at the border started AFTER Trump left office.
• In addition, for the first time ever, we now know that drug cartels have learned to deposit unaccompanied small children on the border to divert Border Patrol resources from preventing cartel and criminal activity to taking care of abandoned kids.
• In addition, there are reports that the there is child abuse going on within the detention facilities as these unaccompanied kids are not protected by their parents.

Oh, by the way, the person Biden has put in charge of this mess, Vice President Kamala Harris has STILL NOT visited ground zero on the border to find out what is really going on, more than seven weeks after being given the assignment to fix what Biden has broken. Such incompetence all around. Unfortunately, this incompetence is causing some serious trauma and abuse of some innocent kids.

3) We have often discussed the reality that for a democracy to survive, the press and journalism entities that serve the democracy have to be strong, aggressive, unbiased, and fair in their reporting. Unfortunately, that cannot be said of the journalism profession and mainstream media in this country today, a reality that does indeed endanger our democracy.

CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post and others have shown themselves to be unfair and intentionally misleading in their reporting, almost always favoring the liberal positions and specifically, the Democratic party, over the past years. This was especially true during the Trump years, where even the pretense of trying to be unbiased was discarded for the worst form of biased journalism.

So it is actually refreshing when one of those biased mainstream outlets actually reports in an unbiased, honest, factual manner:

• Democrats across the country at the state and local government level have imposed the most draconian, oppressive, and often useless and stupid covid lock downs during the pandemic.
• Conversely, Republican politicians across the country have been smarter, made better use of common sense and loosened covid restrictions in a timely and so far, accurate, manner.
• And while most members of the mainstream press falsely saw these Republicans as reckless and dangerous, the reality is that those states with looser restrictions and more freedom relative to covid are in a much stronger economic recovery mode than the states run by Democrats.
• So it was refreshing to see the “Today Show” on NBC, certainly a mainstream media outlet, recognize the truth and factually report on it in their report called “ COVID Conundrum.”
• Their reporting honestly showed that the states with stricter covid restrictions were experiencing a new surge in covid cases while Republican run states were not seeing any surge at all: “Call it a COVID conundrum. In states with the strictest measures in the country, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and much of New England, cases are on the rise, while in the South, states like Arkansas and Texas that have reopened businesses and ripped away mask mandates are seeing their numbers drop.”

Why this is happening is not important in this discussion. The only thing that's important is that FINALLY a mainstream media outlet has actually truthfully reported reality with no bias towards their typical political friends, liberals and Democrats. Quite refreshing from a democracy, freedom and honest journalism perspective.

4) From FDR to John Kennedy to Bill Clinton to a whole bunch of other politicians, members of the American political class have all too often shown themselves to be sexual predators, perverts, and hypocrites. Consider a recent example of such despicable behaviors from an Oregon politician:

• Dave Hunt is a former speaker of the Oregon house of representatives and is a current board member of the Clackamas Community College board.
• And now he is an arrested former speaker of the house in Oregon having been arrested in a police sting associated with human trafficking websites.
• He was arrested after being caught arranging to pay for sex on one of the websites which was really a police sting.
• Although this behavior is pretty nasty and despicable, which makes it worse is his hypocrisy since he actually once sponsored a piece of legislation that was meant to combat sex trafficking.
• He sponsored a bill back in 2007 that crininalized sex trafficking and also voted to support a laws in 2011 which created the crime of “commercial sexual solicitation.”
• The karma of the whole sordid affair is that this was the statue he was arrested for, a piece of legislation he actually voted to enact.

We will assume he is innocent until proven guilty but if he is guilty, he got what he deserved and we get what we deserve when we elect such lowlifes over and over again.

That will do it for today: a possible sex deviant former politician in Oregon, rare honesty from a mainstream media outlet, Biden’s incompetence puts tens of thousands of kids in danger, and California dumbs down the state’s kids.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

Don't They Ever Do The Math In Washington????

When you look at some of the antics and insanity that comes out of Washington, you have to ask yourself if they ever do any simple math to check the reasonableness and logic of their actions. Apparently not, if you consider the following simple math calculations:

- The granddaddy of all stupid math comes from the President's economic stimulus program. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the final cost of the stimulus program to be $830 billion. The White House claims that this expenditure saved or created about 2.7 million jobs. Thus, by dividing the total cost by the generous estimate of 2.7 million jobs, you end up with a cost per job of  over $300,000 per job. How can this be called successful when it costs so much to create or save a job? How can this be called successful relative to the average annual income of an average American household which is around $60,000?

At this rate, to get all 14 million unemployed Americans a job, it would cost $4.3 TRILLION. Of course, as a nation we would never do this, we could never do this since we would never find the money to pay for this. Plus, this kind of pseudo economic policy is based on the false premise that government can actually create jobs. All  governments do is take wealth out of one part of the economy and put it into another part of the economy, there is no net gain.

There is no multiplier effect where somehow when government spends a dollar, via a stimulus program, in the economy it miraculously creates multiples of that in economic activity but when individuals  and businesses are allowed to keep their wealth and they spend it in the same economy, there is no multiplier effect.

The fallacy of this multiplier effect was on full display when the President warned us that if his stimulus program was not enacted, unemployment in this country could go as high as 8%. The program was enacted and unemployment soared up and over 9% and has stayed in that area for what seems forever. So much for the magic multiplier effect.

- And the economic stimulus cost per job of $300,000 is very generous if you consider an analysis that was included in the October issue of Reason magazine. According to an analysis of the stimulus program done by economist Bill Dupor from Ohio State University and economist Timothy Conley from the University of Western Ontario, Obama's economic stimulus program did not create or save 2.7 million jobs.

Their analysis shows that the program created or saved about 450,000 jobs, mostly in the government sector while delaying or destroying about a million jobs in the private sector. In these economists' most optimistic forecast, their best case, if you stretch the assumptions, the stimulus program may have created 659,000 jobs, again mostly in the government sector. Under this best case scenario, the cost per job is almost $1.3 million per job. Outrageous, you cannot make this stuff up. Didn't they do the math in Washington?

Why was the payback so bad? According to the article and the analysis, much of the stimulus spending was used to continue existing state and Federal government programs, the money was not spent to create incremental activity. California, for example, used some of its stimulus cut to fund its existing state unemployment benefits program. Hardly an elegant, creative, and, in the end, an effective way to stimulate economic activity.

Other states took their economic stimulus money and also used it as a pure substitute for existing spending, not incremental economic actions and spending. Traditionally, according to the authors, when the Feds give state governments funding, the states are required to match those funds with their own money to ensure that the money is spent the way the Federal government intends it to be spent.

The economic stimulus plan was written so poorly that this type of control language was not included, resulting in the states spending Federal taxpayer money anyway they wanted. This resulted in such poor economic payback for over $800 billion worth of stimulus.

- And now the President wants to do it all again. He wants Congress to pass his newest economic stimulus program which will cost the Federal government and Federal taxpayer about $450 billion. Last week the President publicly asserted that his new plan will "create" about 1.9 million jobs.

As always, some serious math problems with this misguided view of reality. Simple math indicates that the cost per job created using Obama's own numbers comes out to almost $237,000 per job. Remember, the average annual household income in this country is about $60,000 so this latest problem would cost about four times what the average American household makes in a year. So even if the President was right, the payback is still atrociously bad.

And this assumes that he is right. Remember, in his first stimulus plan he said that unemployment would go as high as 8% if his plan was not passed. It was passed and it went beyond 9%. Thus, this President does not have a good accuracy record when it comes to economic projections. How many times are we going to believe him when he has been wrong so often and so badly in the past?

Doing some additional math, if the President's optimistic forecast is right, this latest stimulus approach would take about $3.3 TRILLION to get all of the 14 unemployed Americans a job. Certainly not an efficient way to get people jobs.

One more math calculation. The President claims that his latest plan will "create" 1.9 million jobs and reduce the unemployment rate by one full percentage point. But, every week, about 400,000 Americans have been filing for first time unemployment benefits, indicating that roughly 400,000 Americans are losing their jobs every week. Do the math, if the President can create 1.9 million jobs in a year, i.e. in time for the next Presidential election, this would average out to about 37,000 jobs created per week.

Thus, we end up with this serious disconnect: 400,000 people file for first time unemployment benefits every week while the President will create 37,000 incremental jobs per week, best case, which is less than 10% of the unemployment benefits filers. This raises they obvious disconnect: how is the unemployment rate going to go down to about 8% when there is this 10 to 1 ratio? As always with the political class, the math makes no sense.

- But for the worse math of all, consider the numbers from a Washington Post article last week. According to the Post article, using tracking data from the Department of Energy Loan Program website, $17.2 billion was loaned to companies to create so-called "green" jobs. These companies turned around to "create" 3,545 jobs. Using some simple math, this comes out to about $4.8 million for each job created. Again, you cannot make this stuff up.

The poster child for this waste is, of course, the Solyndra solar energy panel manufacturer in California. This company received over half a billion in Federal loan guarantees and they not only did not create any incremental jobs, they went bankrupt, went out of business, and took 1,100 existing jobs and the $500 million of taxpayer wealth down the drain with them.

Note: we will dedicate an entire post to this disaster in the next week or so. Disastrous is too mild a word to describe the political class behavior in this situation. Words like cronyism, kickbacks, and criminal are more apt to be accurate.

Just some simple math, I wish the politicians in Washington were good at this basic math. They cook up these grand plans that are based on nothing more than hope and their own, personal political positioning. Basic, simple math and looking at previous economic failures would help avoid the wasting of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Instead, we pay around a quarter million dollars for each job attributed to these failed economic programs, with a 15 times premium to fund "green jobs." Will they ever realize that "government" cannot create jobs? They are not smart enough to do that.

Only individual citizens and businesses can effectively expend their wealth and money  in such a way that economic activity is focused and efficient. Spending over $4 million to the government to create one green job is neither focused or efficient, it borders on criminal.



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/